Ethiopian Health Care Workers’ Insights into and Responses to Intimate Partner Violence in Pregnancy—A Qualitative Study

Bosena Tebeje Gashaw, Berit Schei, Kari Nyheim Solbraekke and Jeanette H. Magnus
Additional contact information
Bosena Tebeje Gashaw: College of Health Sciences, Jimma University, 1355 Jimma, Ethiopia
Berit Schei: Department of Public Health and Nursing, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Science and Technology, N-7489 Trondheim, Norway
Kari Nyheim Solbraekke: Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, 0318 Oslo, Norway
Jeanette H. Magnus: Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, 0316 Oslo, Norway

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 10, 1-15

Abstract: Violence against women is a global pandemic, with the potential to spread through generations. Intimate partner violence has impacts on women’s sexual, reproductive, and psycho-social health. It can occur during pregnancy and adversely affect the health of both mother and child. Health care workers involved in antenatal care can have a unique role in identifying intimate partner violence and in intervening, preventing, and mitigating its consequences. In this study, the objective was to explore Ethiopian health care workers’ insights of and responses to intimate partner violence in pregnancy. Using an exploratory design, this qualitative study includes ten semi-structured interviews of health care workers representing different antenatal care centers in Jimma, Ethiopia. The content analyses of translated interview notes were conducted with Atlas.ti7 software, (Atlas.ti Scientific Software Development Gmbh, Berlin). The health care workers shared their insights of the consequences of intimate partner violence during pregnancy in addition to their experience with and responses to the victims. There was a limited understanding of the extent of the adverse impacts of intimate partner violence on pregnancy outcomes, as well as the potential long-term health implications. The informants described how they only gave medical treatment for obstetric complications or visible trauma during pregnancy. There was no formal referral to or linkages with other resources. Women’s empowerment and systemic changes in the health care, including training and capacity building, clear guidelines addressing management of intimate partner violence in pregnancy, and inclusion of intimate partner violence screening tools in the Ethiopian antenatal care chart/card, were recommended by the informants. The adverse impacts of intimate partner violence on pregnancy outcomes were poorly understood by the Ethiopian health care workers in this study. They offered limited assistance to the victims and recommended changes in the routine antenatal care (ANC) and health care systems. They identified various policy initiatives focusing on women’s empowerment to reduce intimate partner violence and its complications especially during pregnancy.

Keywords: pregnancy IPV; health care workers; insights and responses; guidelines and IPV screening tools; training; women’s empowerment; Ethiopia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3745/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3745/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:10:p:3745-:d:362750

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().